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I feel like this is an easily answerable question, but I can see this because I grew up an atheist (and travel in those typically atheist/educated/professional

I feel like this is an easily answerable question, but I can see this because I grew up an atheist (and travel in those typically atheist/educated/professional circles) and have become much more aware/educated in/embracing of religion later in life myself. If you compare apples to apples - say my average atheist friend who is a director in a FAANG and also my religious friend who is also a director in the same FAANG. The former lives by themselves, spends their money on fun things like cars and "toys", etc. Don't get me wrong, wonderful guy (hence friend) but doesn't have those traditional things that historically have been correlated with a fulfilled life. Meanwhile my religious-FAANG friend has 4 kids, lives in a community where everyone knows each other, lives much closer to family (intentional choice) and just overall sees his life, both the ups and the downs, as part of something purposeful and meaningful. I would say my religious friend has much more intensity and drama/richness in his life, and maybe no time for "sadness" which I actually think is the right way to go. I like talking about these 2 guys because outwardly they are apples to apples (same career, similar degree, etc.) but I think this generalizes well to my other friends too. At whatever level of "secular" success and safety, my religious friends just somehow seem more grounded, more belonging in their lives compared to my atheist friends, deal with setbacks better, take a more long-term view and in that traditional sense have more "to live for" than themselves which is very healthy. America has undergone a VERY rapid secularization. When I came to the US in mid-90s (as an atheist) over half the population attended religious services regularly. Obviously that number is nothing like that today. So what registers to us as an overall change in society (fewer kids, less happy) is actually the proliferation of non religiosity in society and the corresponding magnification of the kind of challenges non-religious folks face. As a sort of comical but sad example, most my atheist friends "would want kids" but have 30 reasons why it's impossible, between economics, politics, etc. Meanwhile my religious friends just have kids.

asdfman123 6mo ago
Yeah, I agree. I think we're deep into a spiritual crisis, a crisis of meaning. A lot of people are blind to the trend because those aren't easy things to measure. But if you're single, isolated, on dating apps -- or maybe caught in an unfulfilling marriage commuting from the suburbs to a job you resent -- there often doesn't seem much point to your own existence. Everything has been stripped of its meaning. The spiritual crisis also explains why people aren't having kids. If there's no point to anything, why go through all the work and hardship? Parents often want to bring more happiness into the world. But if you're deeply unhappy, the logic changes.
- regularization 6mo ago
  > But if you're single, isolated, on dating apps -- or maybe caught in an unfulfilling marriage commuting from the suburbs to a job you resent -- there often doesn't seem much point to your own existence. Everything has been stripped of its meaning. The scenario you paint is one where everything has been stripped of meaning. One option is to seek more meaningful work and social relationships, on an individual level, and/or on a societal movement level. Or one can seek some supernatural mental delusions, an opiate for the people, to anethisize oneself to being a miserable wage slave with a miserable life.
  - asdfman123 6mo ago
    > Or one can seek some supernatural mental delusions, an opiate for the people I'm very much an atheist and a positivist too. I rejected religion growing up. But we don't have to cede the concept of spirituality to organized religion. Spirituality is so much more than that. It's about purpose, connection, and what it means to be a human. You can practice spirituality by meditating at home, just sitting with your thoughts and feelings. No delusion or supernatural beliefs required! When you talk about the future of mankind, our role in it, and what's the most meaningful way to live our lives -- that's what I mean by spirituality.
    - card_zero 6mo ago
      Using a long phrase like "Purpose, connection, and what it means to be a human" seems preferable to enabling supernatural belief to slink in through the gap in the now-ambiguous word "spirituality". I say leave it to Madame Blavatsky. Oh wait that's spiritualism. Same difference. Ooh, how about zeitgeist? I like that word. Then you'd still have spirits, but rational German ones.
      - asdfman123 6mo ago
        I intentionally use the word because fellow atheists and positivists are too uncomfortable with it, and I believe the world needs more of it. Yes, I'm pro-science and rational thought, but I'm increasingly thinking people like me have spent too long in left brain land and need to explore some of the deeper, subtle, and more intuitive parts of what it means to be a human, if that makes any sense.
nice_byte 6mo ago
Sounds like you have two happy well-adjusted friends?
noelsusman 6mo ago
Secularism in the US began rising steadily in 1990 and has actually been declining since 2020. That trend doesn't line up well with any of the data we're talking about.
- cvwright 6mo ago
  Unless the data is a lagging indicator
FrustratedMonky 6mo ago
"America has undergone a VERY rapid secularization" And yet we elected Jesus.
- z500 6mo ago
  I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.
- wat10000 6mo ago
  A reaction to that very same secularization. Religious nutjobs feel threatened and this is their answer.
  - cmrdporcupine 6mo ago
    I think this is def part of it. Trump was not doing well in 2016 at all until the final debate when he cornered Clinton into a (legitimate) strong defense of her pro-choice position. All the "moderate" Christians who couldn't stomach Trump before suddenly had no choice. Essentially all Christian denominations + Mormons think abortion is murder. How can a candidate win a majority in a society where a plurality identifies as Christian and therefore probably takes that position? Secularization of the majority, and the liberal culutral values that go with it just alienates these people more and more around abortion, gay rights, and most markedly, trans issues. Although the devoutly religious are becoming more of a minority, they are far more homogeneously aligned on these core issues, and therefore easier to cohere around a "right wing" electoral block even when they do not think "right wing" around economic and political / international issues. They're willing to tolerate Trump on a whole pile of things as long as they feel he's accomplishing their "moral" goals -- and so far he mostly is.
    - lamasery 6mo ago
      Tying anti-abortion positions so tightly to Christianity (especially, popularizing it among protestant sects) and elevating that to a concern above most or all others (American conservative catholicism) was a deliberate move by propagandists in the last century, not something that somehow arose naturally. Ditto trans stuff becoming a huge concern all the sudden. That wasn't "organic", it's a moral panic ginned up by people with microphones. There's at least as much cynical-politics-affecting-religion as the reverse in the topics and positions you raise. [EDIT] My point, as it occurs to me it may not be clear, is that "well most are christian so of course pro-choice or other 'liberal' positions struggle" is not a great explanation of what's going on, because that association isn't so guaranteed as this suggests. Things like social and economic justice are heavily connected to and promoted by christianity in some countries outside the US, but much less-so here. Historically, they have been here, too! More-Christian or less-Christian isn't the only axis here, what "Christian" tends to mean as it relates to politics hasn't been static, and that change has been in no small part driven by elite opinion and propaganda for the purposes of capturing religion for political ends, not from grass-roots demand.
725686 6mo ago
What has atheism anything to do with this?
- tempaccount5050 6mo ago
  Absolutely nothing. Religious people just tend to think they have it all figured out because they've been well trained in following tradition and avoiding questioning the status quo.
  - phil21 6mo ago
    Which would make someone less sad by default, no? I certainly sort of wish I thought I had it all figured out - I'd be way happier! That's also an extreme oversimplification of religion which describes only a very small number of individuals of most if not all faiths. The vast majority are not hardliners, and understand the larger component of religion is community and shared purpose.
    - muwtyhg 6mo ago
      > Which would make someone less sad by default, no? Ignorance is bliss. Is ignorance therefore good?
- BJones12 6mo ago
  Because the article's question is 'how did America get so sad' and the answer is 'because it lost Christianity' because Christianity makes people less sad.
  - eitally 6mo ago
    I'm not even sure it's Christianity that makes people less sad (I would argue that it isn't). It's the civic community that churches often create that breed purpose & happiness. Churches aren't the only types of communities that do this, but they're by far the most common.
  - rootusrootus 6mo ago
everdrive 6mo ago
> say my average atheist friend who is a director in a FAANG Not a lot of "average" going on here.
- xyzelement 6mo ago
  What I should have said is the two guys are fairly representative and more importantly line up to the story: if we are so Rich how are we so sad. So I used to relatively rich friends as the example:)
  - everdrive 6mo ago
    That's totally fair. I think to the extent that wealth degrades community you're going to have a clear trend.
    - xyzelement 6mo ago
      The counterpoint of the example I used is that among my religious friends wealth has not degraded family/community. Small personal example - we are undergoing home renovation right now to create a larger dining room that can accommodate better our extended family. I see this kind of behavior among friends and family who are religious and can afford to.
JALTU 6mo ago
No time for sadness? HA! War and suffering continues unabated, "surprise"! No, sadness becomes part and parcel of...everything! At least nowadays: New awesome toy! Kid got bad grade. Fun vacation last week! Friend's daughter died. PR riding bike! Dad needs help with a thing. To your point: Life is rich with living. And yes, friends without kids, etc. talk about and buy toys. Cool! But/and no offense, gotta go now. Life is rich and richly nuanced.
wat10000 6mo ago
I doubt it's quite that simple, but this does seem likely to be a big factor. I say this as an atheist myself. Religion does seem to give people a purpose and a community that's difficult to find elsewhere, and that translates to happiness. Sometimes I wish I could do it, but I can't. While a fall in religiosity may be part of the cause, I don't think a return to religion is the answer. We need to find ways to replicate the non-supernatural aspects of religion without the weird stuff.
- xyzelement 6mo ago
  I think this is a common reaction that I used to agree with but no longer. I think religion tends to capture something essential about reality that atheism excluded by definition. There's a reason no atheist society has historically arisen and thrived in the way that you are suggesting. If it was possible why hasn't it happened. The idea of atheism is ancient - why has it not worked?
  - tock 6mo ago
    Large sections of China, Japan, etc are atheists. Why do you think it hasn't worked?
    - xyzelement 6mo ago
      Well for one obvious example is both of those societies are only recently atheist (<100 years) and that they both have an absolute dismal birth rate that makes it hard to imagine how they will look like a hundred years from now.
      - tock 6mo ago
        Every society has had gods at some point in the past. Why didn't every society improve then? And China's growth has been very recent(after the 80s). And birth rates have absolutely collapsed across the world. It's not some unique Chinese/Japanese situation. Before their silly 1 child policy change China had insane population growth. As non religious people. Almost like these aren't really connected at all.
regularization 6mo ago
> When I came to the US in mid-90s (as an atheist) over half the population attended religious services regularly. No. When polled, half the population said they attended religious services regularly. Researchers going to churches and estimating attendance found actual attendance was always less than what polls said. If people actually attended services like they said they did in polls, pews would be much more full (now and before). Also, you know two people, but I could give examples as well - a normal secular family doing well compared to some evangelical family which is not doing well at all. Also - there are suburbs which have, say, a sizeable Norwegian population. People go to some ELCA church. You talk to them, and a lot of them don't believe in the tenets of Lutheranism - miracles, the resurrection of Jesus etc. But they go to weddings, funerals, services, coffee after services. Dinners, clothing drives. Events around Easter. For many of them there is no belief at all, they just have coffee with their neighbors every week. Technically they are considered Christians, without believing in Christianity per se.
lpcvoid 6mo ago
Religion has nice side effects (community), but vast downsides (non-scientific worldview, brainwashing). I think you can get the community feeling also by simply meeting with people you know, in hackerspaces for instance.
- xyzelement 6mo ago
  "non-scientific worldview" I find this an oft repeated meme. The men to whom we own our scientific understanding were all deeply religious (not just lived in a time when everyone went to church) For example - Darwin had trained to be an Anglican vikar prior to his journey on the Beagle and wrote to his future wife letters full of discussion of divinity. Newton was obviously deeply religious and wrote more about religion than about physics. In fact his view of gd as singular was considered to be heretical by the Anglican church but was perfectly aligned to the old testament - what I am getting at here is that he didn't just happen to have faith by default but had a very deep and personal one. At the conclusion of principia Mathematica he wrote tons friend that he believed this work would make it obvious to a thinking man that presence of gd. Georges lemaitre who came up with the big bang theory was a Belgian Catholic priest. The secular science at the time was adamant about the Greek model of the eternal universe, and we owe our modern view of it to someone who came into the situation already believing a moment of creation. Einstein was famously a non practicing jew who nonetheless at age 11 had taught himself Judaism and later in life advocated for he study of talmud. I can't claim him to be a practitioner but his own writing speaks to a certain expectation of how the universe ought to be (that was later proven out in math) and a belief in a sort of spirit of the universe. The point isn't that he was an orthodox jew but that he is very far from a modern atheist. So I don't actually agree with this idea that religion is non scientific when we owe our deepest scientific understanding to men who saw themselves and the universe through a religious lens. That's not to say that there's no ignorance in some religions and among some practitioners but rather that religion at its best can claim really significant contributions that I don't think are matched by atheism at its best.
  - tock 6mo ago
    They were scientific in spite of being religious. Not because of it. > that I don't think are matched by atheism at its best There are plenty of scientists including Feynman and Hawkings. These are unrelated things.
tock 6mo ago
Counterpoint: I know plenty of very religious families with multiple kids who are deeply unhappy. In my experience friends and family are the primary contributor to happiness. Provided they are good people. Else its a train wreck. It doesn't matter if they are religious or not.
- stringfood 6mo ago
  I also know many religious families who have disowned their kids for being gay - it is not a one way street of great benefits. Let alone the mental gymnastics required to claim to know the creator of the universe
- qgin 6mo ago
  The idea of kids being a get-out-of-jail-free card to happiness and existential turmoil has never made sense to me. Kids are wonderful, but not because they’re not a magical gateway to happiness.
- NoGravitas 6mo ago
  They're more motivated to pretend everything is okay, at least.
torben-friis 6mo ago
I think it's a symptom of American mentality that atheism and deep meaning are considered opposites. I don't think you're wrong to analyse your friends, I think you're right that Americans pivot toward religion (or the ill defined "spirituality") when they feel they lack that something else. But in many other places, including where I live, it's natural to lean on philosophy, personal connections, family, teaching, social work or any other "deep fulfillment activities", and in fact the kind of empty success you describe is frowned upon, among atheists just as much as among religious people. Philosophy is part of the basic school curriculum from secondary school, and dealing with the big questions is not left for mass.
benjaminends 6mo ago
Not to be snide, but did you read the article? The article explicitly removes decline in religion as an explanation for this particular bout of unhappiness. Is everyone in this comment chain arguing from a perspective of, "I disagree with author's assessment" or "I read the headline and I'm offering my own conjecture"?
- ambicapter 6mo ago
  90% of the top-level comments here are people proffering explanations disputed in the article.
- 9rx 6mo ago
  > The article explicitly removes decline in religion as an explanation for this particular bout of unhappiness. It tried to, at least, but I'm not sure it succeeded. The growing secularization up to 2020 follows the long-term trend towards unhappiness and peak secularization and peak unhappiness line up too. Happiness has even started to improve in line with the growing return to religiosity that has occurred most recently. The data it presents as supposedly dismissing religion actually makes a reasonable case for religion. Of course, the reality is that there never one reason. Americans are sad for millions of different reasons. The idea that if we fix that one thing all will become right with the world is pure fantasy.
  - kelnos 6mo ago
    > The growing secularization up to 2020 follows the long-term trend towards unhappiness and peak secularization and peak unhappiness line up too. Are we looking at the same graphs? That's not what I saw.
neogodless 6mo ago
> America has undergone a VERY rapid secularization. If I understand correctly, connecting the dots from the article and your comment, beginning in 2020, everyone moved away from religion towards atheism in some kind of rapid shift? Is this supported by the demographic data?
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
JeremyNT 6mo ago
> lives much closer to family (intentional choice) Living close to family is surely the single thing most could do to immediately improve their happiness. (while not all of us are lucky to have welcoming family, the way people in the US are willing to uproot themselves and move across the country where they know nobody is extremely harmful to their senses of community)
- retired 6mo ago
  As someone that can’t afford to live close to family this hits me in the feelings. Would love it if the government would do something about it.
- eloisant 6mo ago
  It's also something that has nothing to do with religion. I am always surprised to see how religion people sometimes think you can't care about other people or your family if you don't believe in a bearded guy in the sky.
  - GS523523 6mo ago
    The difference is, like Jesus taught, religious people will care for others expecting nothing in return (reward is from God), but secular people will, even if it's as small as the narcissistic satisfaction of "look at me I'm such a good person." As soon as the cost-benefit of caring for family goes deeply negative, there's no reason to keep doing so.
    - eloisant 6mo ago
      OK, you did it again! Exactly what I'm talking about. You think that without religions we're just selfish calculating bastards. We're not, I promise.
      - GS523523 6mo ago
        How do you make decisions without calculations? we're all calculators, aren't we? Can you provide a reason to care for someone that has nothing to do with religion and nothing to do with a personal/societal gain?
yodsanklai 6mo ago
What a generalization!! plenty of religious people are sad, not all of them are particularly frugal, and not all atheists think of buying toys. Also the US is a very religious country compared to western or northern Europe where people aren't particularly sad.
- stringfood 6mo ago
  Hey he noticed it in his 6 friends he has, maybe it holds true as N grows to 8 billion? /s Not like the entire point of the Renaissance was to ignore the scripture and stop acting like it was true and to start actually doing experiments in reality
fellowniusmonk 6mo ago
Weird, ok, my anecdote flows in almost the exact opposite direction. I come from a highly religious Christian background and moved in the other direction without any ill will, most of my religious male friends who have families have confided in me that they think monogamy and general family values are worn out cultural artifacts and clearly regret buying in even though they love their kids and are entrenched in their communities. Many already have a first divorce under their belt. Meanwhile my atheist friends had their first kid right around 40 and are somewhere between 1-3 kids and after a fair amount of relationship churn when they were younger are now in very stable relationships, some very orthodox and a few semi-orthodox. If the trajectory hold for this generation the same as I saw for my religious parents generation I think the trajectory looks not great for mental health on the religious side.
9rx 6mo ago
> America has undergone a VERY rapid secularization. I'm not so sure of that. America has rapidly moved away from believing in some kind of magical spirit in the sky, but they most certainly haven't given up on religion in general. They have latched on to other blind faiths and rituals. What hasn't typically come with those new religions, like you allude to, is a church; a place where fellowship occurs. That is a reasonable possibility for the decline in happiness. Research regularly suggests that most people find happiness in relationships with other people. Nothing is ever single-faceted, though.
Bengalilol 6mo ago
> Meanwhile my religious-FAANG friend has 4 kids, lives in a community where everyone knows each other, lives much closer to family (intentional choice) and just overall sees his life, both the ups and the downs, as part of something purposeful and meaningful. I am a full atheist, living in Switzerland. The community is strong, the neighborhood too and the city is a charm (Geneva). 3 kids, coding and spending my time contemplating humans at their best: having fun and getting on a higher ground. I don't have an answer regarding the bigger picture but I will surely think about it and get back to you. EDIT As I wrote in another comment: confronting the truth (whatever the spirituality behind) in itself doesn't make someone unhappy, it's the sense of losing one's footing that does. In many ways, America was built along those lines.
alphawhisky 6mo ago
That's crazy, because as a 25 year old in the US with religious family, I can promise you that churchgoing folks are the least generous people out there. I don't know what organized religion is like in other countries, but in the US churches are abused as tax havens, religious private schools are sucking up funding meant for disadvantaged children (in public schools), and the president is claiming the mandate of god as he spends tax money blowing up foreign children.
- xyzelement 6mo ago
  I live in a very different reality I guess. // religious private schools are sucking up funding meant for disadvantaged children (in public schools), What does that mean. In our case we pay about 20k a year in town school taxes only to send our kids to a private religious school. So the fact that my kids go to a religious school literally makes my money available to educate other people's kids in the school. // churches are abused as tax haveans Anything can be abused I guess. My synagogue is constantly raising money for secular causes like disaster relief and feeding the homeless. The fact that a congregant gets 3k back in taxes on a 10k donation still means he's out 6.
thewillowcat 6mo ago
Even though I am personally agnostic, I do structure my life around the traditionally meaningful things you're talking about, and I do see the cultural mood a kind of spiritual crisis. What's less clear to me is why the actual fall in happiness happened so rapidly with the pandemic. People were living spiritually vacant lives well before that!
stringfood 6mo ago
yes but to truly enjoy the religious lifestyle you have to believe in very hard to believe things - without that true belief I feel like an imposter. I feel it is very well known that religious people have the ability to be extremely extremely happy, healthy, and well-adjusted in their community, but it comes at a cost I feel. I do not know God and I do not know where I came from or where I will go. I would choose this than to pretend I know and join a group in pursuit of the lifestyle benefits it brings. And yes I spend all my time alone playing with toys I bought and not being fulfilled as my religious friends. 100% of my religious friends feel extremely fulfilled but it does not make it right choice for everyone. I don't want to believe I want to know and if I cannot know then so be it I will remain in the dark forever.
kelnos 6mo ago
Oh jeez, here we go again with this. Secularization isn't the problem. Isolation is the problem. Avoiding community and treating others as strangers to be feared is the problem. Maybe read the article? It covers all this, and points out that secularization has been going on for far longer than this happiness crisis. Your assertion just doesn't fit the data. And let's stop with the whole "just have kids and you'll be happy" garbage. It's lazy thinking, and such a tired argument, and falls flat in the face of actual data. As for anecdotes, I know plenty of people with and without kids with levels of happiness that run the gamut. There's plenty to be happy about with or without kids, and also plenty to be unhappy about with or without kids.

asdfman123 6mo ago

Yeah, I agree. I think we're deep into a spiritual crisis, a crisis of meaning. A lot of people are blind to the trend because those aren't easy things to measure. But if you're single, isolated, on dating apps -- or maybe caught in an unfulfilling marriage commuting from the suburbs to a job you resent -- there often doesn't seem much point to your own existence. Everything has been stripped of its meaning. The spiritual crisis also explains why people aren't having kids. If there's no point to anything, why go through all the work and hardship? Parents often want to bring more happiness into the world. But if you're deeply unhappy, the logic changes.

regularization 6mo ago
> But if you're single, isolated, on dating apps -- or maybe caught in an unfulfilling marriage commuting from the suburbs to a job you resent -- there often doesn't seem much point to your own existence. Everything has been stripped of its meaning. The scenario you paint is one where everything has been stripped of meaning. One option is to seek more meaningful work and social relationships, on an individual level, and/or on a societal movement level. Or one can seek some supernatural mental delusions, an opiate for the people, to anethisize oneself to being a miserable wage slave with a miserable life.
- asdfman123 6mo ago
  > Or one can seek some supernatural mental delusions, an opiate for the people I'm very much an atheist and a positivist too. I rejected religion growing up. But we don't have to cede the concept of spirituality to organized religion. Spirituality is so much more than that. It's about purpose, connection, and what it means to be a human. You can practice spirituality by meditating at home, just sitting with your thoughts and feelings. No delusion or supernatural beliefs required! When you talk about the future of mankind, our role in it, and what's the most meaningful way to live our lives -- that's what I mean by spirituality.
  - card_zero 6mo ago
    Using a long phrase like "Purpose, connection, and what it means to be a human" seems preferable to enabling supernatural belief to slink in through the gap in the now-ambiguous word "spirituality". I say leave it to Madame Blavatsky. Oh wait that's spiritualism. Same difference. Ooh, how about zeitgeist? I like that word. Then you'd still have spirits, but rational German ones.
    - asdfman123 6mo ago
      I intentionally use the word because fellow atheists and positivists are too uncomfortable with it, and I believe the world needs more of it. Yes, I'm pro-science and rational thought, but I'm increasingly thinking people like me have spent too long in left brain land and need to explore some of the deeper, subtle, and more intuitive parts of what it means to be a human, if that makes any sense.

nice_byte 6mo ago

Sounds like you have two happy well-adjusted friends?

noelsusman 6mo ago

Secularism in the US began rising steadily in 1990 and has actually been declining since 2020. That trend doesn't line up well with any of the data we're talking about.

cvwright 6mo ago
Unless the data is a lagging indicator

FrustratedMonky 6mo ago

"America has undergone a VERY rapid secularization" And yet we elected Jesus.

z500 6mo ago
I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.
wat10000 6mo ago
A reaction to that very same secularization. Religious nutjobs feel threatened and this is their answer.
- cmrdporcupine 6mo ago
  I think this is def part of it. Trump was not doing well in 2016 at all until the final debate when he cornered Clinton into a (legitimate) strong defense of her pro-choice position. All the "moderate" Christians who couldn't stomach Trump before suddenly had no choice. Essentially all Christian denominations + Mormons think abortion is murder. How can a candidate win a majority in a society where a plurality identifies as Christian and therefore probably takes that position? Secularization of the majority, and the liberal culutral values that go with it just alienates these people more and more around abortion, gay rights, and most markedly, trans issues. Although the devoutly religious are becoming more of a minority, they are far more homogeneously aligned on these core issues, and therefore easier to cohere around a "right wing" electoral block even when they do not think "right wing" around economic and political / international issues. They're willing to tolerate Trump on a whole pile of things as long as they feel he's accomplishing their "moral" goals -- and so far he mostly is.
  - lamasery 6mo ago
    Tying anti-abortion positions so tightly to Christianity (especially, popularizing it among protestant sects) and elevating that to a concern above most or all others (American conservative catholicism) was a deliberate move by propagandists in the last century, not something that somehow arose naturally. Ditto trans stuff becoming a huge concern all the sudden. That wasn't "organic", it's a moral panic ginned up by people with microphones. There's at least as much cynical-politics-affecting-religion as the reverse in the topics and positions you raise. [EDIT] My point, as it occurs to me it may not be clear, is that "well most are christian so of course pro-choice or other 'liberal' positions struggle" is not a great explanation of what's going on, because that association isn't so guaranteed as this suggests. Things like social and economic justice are heavily connected to and promoted by christianity in some countries outside the US, but much less-so here. Historically, they have been here, too! More-Christian or less-Christian isn't the only axis here, what "Christian" tends to mean as it relates to politics hasn't been static, and that change has been in no small part driven by elite opinion and propaganda for the purposes of capturing religion for political ends, not from grass-roots demand.

725686 6mo ago

What has atheism anything to do with this?

tempaccount5050 6mo ago
Absolutely nothing. Religious people just tend to think they have it all figured out because they've been well trained in following tradition and avoiding questioning the status quo.
- phil21 6mo ago
  Which would make someone less sad by default, no? I certainly sort of wish I thought I had it all figured out - I'd be way happier! That's also an extreme oversimplification of religion which describes only a very small number of individuals of most if not all faiths. The vast majority are not hardliners, and understand the larger component of religion is community and shared purpose.
  - muwtyhg 6mo ago
    > Which would make someone less sad by default, no? Ignorance is bliss. Is ignorance therefore good?
BJones12 6mo ago
Because the article's question is 'how did America get so sad' and the answer is 'because it lost Christianity' because Christianity makes people less sad.
- eitally 6mo ago
  I'm not even sure it's Christianity that makes people less sad (I would argue that it isn't). It's the civic community that churches often create that breed purpose & happiness. Churches aren't the only types of communities that do this, but they're by far the most common.
- rootusrootus 6mo ago

everdrive 6mo ago

> say my average atheist friend who is a director in a FAANG Not a lot of "average" going on here.

xyzelement 6mo ago
What I should have said is the two guys are fairly representative and more importantly line up to the story: if we are so Rich how are we so sad. So I used to relatively rich friends as the example:)
- everdrive 6mo ago
  That's totally fair. I think to the extent that wealth degrades community you're going to have a clear trend.
  - xyzelement 6mo ago
    The counterpoint of the example I used is that among my religious friends wealth has not degraded family/community. Small personal example - we are undergoing home renovation right now to create a larger dining room that can accommodate better our extended family. I see this kind of behavior among friends and family who are religious and can afford to.

JALTU 6mo ago

No time for sadness? HA! War and suffering continues unabated, "surprise"! No, sadness becomes part and parcel of...everything! At least nowadays: New awesome toy! Kid got bad grade. Fun vacation last week! Friend's daughter died. PR riding bike! Dad needs help with a thing. To your point: Life is rich with living. And yes, friends without kids, etc. talk about and buy toys. Cool! But/and no offense, gotta go now. Life is rich and richly nuanced.

wat10000 6mo ago

I doubt it's quite that simple, but this does seem likely to be a big factor. I say this as an atheist myself. Religion does seem to give people a purpose and a community that's difficult to find elsewhere, and that translates to happiness. Sometimes I wish I could do it, but I can't. While a fall in religiosity may be part of the cause, I don't think a return to religion is the answer. We need to find ways to replicate the non-supernatural aspects of religion without the weird stuff.

xyzelement 6mo ago
I think this is a common reaction that I used to agree with but no longer. I think religion tends to capture something essential about reality that atheism excluded by definition. There's a reason no atheist society has historically arisen and thrived in the way that you are suggesting. If it was possible why hasn't it happened. The idea of atheism is ancient - why has it not worked?
- tock 6mo ago
  Large sections of China, Japan, etc are atheists. Why do you think it hasn't worked?
  - xyzelement 6mo ago
    Well for one obvious example is both of those societies are only recently atheist (<100 years) and that they both have an absolute dismal birth rate that makes it hard to imagine how they will look like a hundred years from now.
    - tock 6mo ago
      Every society has had gods at some point in the past. Why didn't every society improve then? And China's growth has been very recent(after the 80s). And birth rates have absolutely collapsed across the world. It's not some unique Chinese/Japanese situation. Before their silly 1 child policy change China had insane population growth. As non religious people. Almost like these aren't really connected at all.

regularization 6mo ago

> When I came to the US in mid-90s (as an atheist) over half the population attended religious services regularly. No. When polled, half the population said they attended religious services regularly. Researchers going to churches and estimating attendance found actual attendance was always less than what polls said. If people actually attended services like they said they did in polls, pews would be much more full (now and before). Also, you know two people, but I could give examples as well - a normal secular family doing well compared to some evangelical family which is not doing well at all. Also - there are suburbs which have, say, a sizeable Norwegian population. People go to some ELCA church. You talk to them, and a lot of them don't believe in the tenets of Lutheranism - miracles, the resurrection of Jesus etc. But they go to weddings, funerals, services, coffee after services. Dinners, clothing drives. Events around Easter. For many of them there is no belief at all, they just have coffee with their neighbors every week. Technically they are considered Christians, without believing in Christianity per se.

lpcvoid 6mo ago

Religion has nice side effects (community), but vast downsides (non-scientific worldview, brainwashing). I think you can get the community feeling also by simply meeting with people you know, in hackerspaces for instance.

xyzelement 6mo ago
"non-scientific worldview" I find this an oft repeated meme. The men to whom we own our scientific understanding were all deeply religious (not just lived in a time when everyone went to church) For example - Darwin had trained to be an Anglican vikar prior to his journey on the Beagle and wrote to his future wife letters full of discussion of divinity. Newton was obviously deeply religious and wrote more about religion than about physics. In fact his view of gd as singular was considered to be heretical by the Anglican church but was perfectly aligned to the old testament - what I am getting at here is that he didn't just happen to have faith by default but had a very deep and personal one. At the conclusion of principia Mathematica he wrote tons friend that he believed this work would make it obvious to a thinking man that presence of gd. Georges lemaitre who came up with the big bang theory was a Belgian Catholic priest. The secular science at the time was adamant about the Greek model of the eternal universe, and we owe our modern view of it to someone who came into the situation already believing a moment of creation. Einstein was famously a non practicing jew who nonetheless at age 11 had taught himself Judaism and later in life advocated for he study of talmud. I can't claim him to be a practitioner but his own writing speaks to a certain expectation of how the universe ought to be (that was later proven out in math) and a belief in a sort of spirit of the universe. The point isn't that he was an orthodox jew but that he is very far from a modern atheist. So I don't actually agree with this idea that religion is non scientific when we owe our deepest scientific understanding to men who saw themselves and the universe through a religious lens. That's not to say that there's no ignorance in some religions and among some practitioners but rather that religion at its best can claim really significant contributions that I don't think are matched by atheism at its best.
- tock 6mo ago
  They were scientific in spite of being religious. Not because of it. > that I don't think are matched by atheism at its best There are plenty of scientists including Feynman and Hawkings. These are unrelated things.

tock 6mo ago

Counterpoint: I know plenty of very religious families with multiple kids who are deeply unhappy. In my experience friends and family are the primary contributor to happiness. Provided they are good people. Else its a train wreck. It doesn't matter if they are religious or not.

stringfood 6mo ago
I also know many religious families who have disowned their kids for being gay - it is not a one way street of great benefits. Let alone the mental gymnastics required to claim to know the creator of the universe
qgin 6mo ago
The idea of kids being a get-out-of-jail-free card to happiness and existential turmoil has never made sense to me. Kids are wonderful, but not because they’re not a magical gateway to happiness.
NoGravitas 6mo ago
They're more motivated to pretend everything is okay, at least.

torben-friis 6mo ago

I think it's a symptom of American mentality that atheism and deep meaning are considered opposites. I don't think you're wrong to analyse your friends, I think you're right that Americans pivot toward religion (or the ill defined "spirituality") when they feel they lack that something else. But in many other places, including where I live, it's natural to lean on philosophy, personal connections, family, teaching, social work or any other "deep fulfillment activities", and in fact the kind of empty success you describe is frowned upon, among atheists just as much as among religious people. Philosophy is part of the basic school curriculum from secondary school, and dealing with the big questions is not left for mass.

benjaminends 6mo ago

Not to be snide, but did you read the article? The article explicitly removes decline in religion as an explanation for this particular bout of unhappiness. Is everyone in this comment chain arguing from a perspective of, "I disagree with author's assessment" or "I read the headline and I'm offering my own conjecture"?

ambicapter 6mo ago
90% of the top-level comments here are people proffering explanations disputed in the article.
9rx 6mo ago
> The article explicitly removes decline in religion as an explanation for this particular bout of unhappiness. It tried to, at least, but I'm not sure it succeeded. The growing secularization up to 2020 follows the long-term trend towards unhappiness and peak secularization and peak unhappiness line up too. Happiness has even started to improve in line with the growing return to religiosity that has occurred most recently. The data it presents as supposedly dismissing religion actually makes a reasonable case for religion. Of course, the reality is that there never one reason. Americans are sad for millions of different reasons. The idea that if we fix that one thing all will become right with the world is pure fantasy.
- kelnos 6mo ago
  > The growing secularization up to 2020 follows the long-term trend towards unhappiness and peak secularization and peak unhappiness line up too. Are we looking at the same graphs? That's not what I saw.

neogodless 6mo ago

> America has undergone a VERY rapid secularization. If I understand correctly, connecting the dots from the article and your comment, beginning in 2020, everyone moved away from religion towards atheism in some kind of rapid shift? Is this supported by the demographic data?

deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]

JeremyNT 6mo ago

> lives much closer to family (intentional choice) Living close to family is surely the single thing most could do to immediately improve their happiness. (while not all of us are lucky to have welcoming family, the way people in the US are willing to uproot themselves and move across the country where they know nobody is extremely harmful to their senses of community)

retired 6mo ago
As someone that can’t afford to live close to family this hits me in the feelings. Would love it if the government would do something about it.
eloisant 6mo ago
It's also something that has nothing to do with religion. I am always surprised to see how religion people sometimes think you can't care about other people or your family if you don't believe in a bearded guy in the sky.
- GS523523 6mo ago
  The difference is, like Jesus taught, religious people will care for others expecting nothing in return (reward is from God), but secular people will, even if it's as small as the narcissistic satisfaction of "look at me I'm such a good person." As soon as the cost-benefit of caring for family goes deeply negative, there's no reason to keep doing so.
  - eloisant 6mo ago
    OK, you did it again! Exactly what I'm talking about. You think that without religions we're just selfish calculating bastards. We're not, I promise.
    - GS523523 6mo ago
      How do you make decisions without calculations? we're all calculators, aren't we? Can you provide a reason to care for someone that has nothing to do with religion and nothing to do with a personal/societal gain?

yodsanklai 6mo ago

What a generalization!! plenty of religious people are sad, not all of them are particularly frugal, and not all atheists think of buying toys. Also the US is a very religious country compared to western or northern Europe where people aren't particularly sad.

stringfood 6mo ago
Hey he noticed it in his 6 friends he has, maybe it holds true as N grows to 8 billion? /s Not like the entire point of the Renaissance was to ignore the scripture and stop acting like it was true and to start actually doing experiments in reality

fellowniusmonk 6mo ago

Weird, ok, my anecdote flows in almost the exact opposite direction. I come from a highly religious Christian background and moved in the other direction without any ill will, most of my religious male friends who have families have confided in me that they think monogamy and general family values are worn out cultural artifacts and clearly regret buying in even though they love their kids and are entrenched in their communities. Many already have a first divorce under their belt. Meanwhile my atheist friends had their first kid right around 40 and are somewhere between 1-3 kids and after a fair amount of relationship churn when they were younger are now in very stable relationships, some very orthodox and a few semi-orthodox. If the trajectory hold for this generation the same as I saw for my religious parents generation I think the trajectory looks not great for mental health on the religious side.

9rx 6mo ago

> America has undergone a VERY rapid secularization. I'm not so sure of that. America has rapidly moved away from believing in some kind of magical spirit in the sky, but they most certainly haven't given up on religion in general. They have latched on to other blind faiths and rituals. What hasn't typically come with those new religions, like you allude to, is a church; a place where fellowship occurs. That is a reasonable possibility for the decline in happiness. Research regularly suggests that most people find happiness in relationships with other people. Nothing is ever single-faceted, though.

Bengalilol 6mo ago

> Meanwhile my religious-FAANG friend has 4 kids, lives in a community where everyone knows each other, lives much closer to family (intentional choice) and just overall sees his life, both the ups and the downs, as part of something purposeful and meaningful. I am a full atheist, living in Switzerland. The community is strong, the neighborhood too and the city is a charm (Geneva). 3 kids, coding and spending my time contemplating humans at their best: having fun and getting on a higher ground. I don't have an answer regarding the bigger picture but I will surely think about it and get back to you. EDIT As I wrote in another comment: confronting the truth (whatever the spirituality behind) in itself doesn't make someone unhappy, it's the sense of losing one's footing that does. In many ways, America was built along those lines.

alphawhisky 6mo ago

That's crazy, because as a 25 year old in the US with religious family, I can promise you that churchgoing folks are the least generous people out there. I don't know what organized religion is like in other countries, but in the US churches are abused as tax havens, religious private schools are sucking up funding meant for disadvantaged children (in public schools), and the president is claiming the mandate of god as he spends tax money blowing up foreign children.

xyzelement 6mo ago
I live in a very different reality I guess. // religious private schools are sucking up funding meant for disadvantaged children (in public schools), What does that mean. In our case we pay about 20k a year in town school taxes only to send our kids to a private religious school. So the fact that my kids go to a religious school literally makes my money available to educate other people's kids in the school. // churches are abused as tax haveans Anything can be abused I guess. My synagogue is constantly raising money for secular causes like disaster relief and feeding the homeless. The fact that a congregant gets 3k back in taxes on a 10k donation still means he's out 6.

thewillowcat 6mo ago

Even though I am personally agnostic, I do structure my life around the traditionally meaningful things you're talking about, and I do see the cultural mood a kind of spiritual crisis. What's less clear to me is why the actual fall in happiness happened so rapidly with the pandemic. People were living spiritually vacant lives well before that!

stringfood 6mo ago

yes but to truly enjoy the religious lifestyle you have to believe in very hard to believe things - without that true belief I feel like an imposter. I feel it is very well known that religious people have the ability to be extremely extremely happy, healthy, and well-adjusted in their community, but it comes at a cost I feel. I do not know God and I do not know where I came from or where I will go. I would choose this than to pretend I know and join a group in pursuit of the lifestyle benefits it brings. And yes I spend all my time alone playing with toys I bought and not being fulfilled as my religious friends. 100% of my religious friends feel extremely fulfilled but it does not make it right choice for everyone. I don't want to believe I want to know and if I cannot know then so be it I will remain in the dark forever.

kelnos 6mo ago

Oh jeez, here we go again with this. Secularization isn't the problem. Isolation is the problem. Avoiding community and treating others as strangers to be feared is the problem. Maybe read the article? It covers all this, and points out that secularization has been going on for far longer than this happiness crisis. Your assertion just doesn't fit the data. And let's stop with the whole "just have kids and you'll be happy" garbage. It's lazy thinking, and such a tired argument, and falls flat in the face of actual data. As for anecdotes, I know plenty of people with and without kids with levels of happiness that run the gamut. There's plenty to be happy about with or without kids, and also plenty to be unhappy about with or without kids.